Jason and Ezra discuss the basic elements of good and bad film. From dramas to comedies, action to science fiction, good and bad movies come in many forms and take on many critics. Here are just a few examples as we ponder the idea of what makes a good film good and a bad film bad.

It was probably a mistake on my part to watch both of these films within the same week, seeing as how they are very similar in plot and incident throughout the first two acts of each film. However, when I heard that Brian De Palma’s latest film was actually a remake of a fairly recent French thriller I had been meaning to see anyway, and that the original film was readily available to stream on Netflix, I decided “Why not?” I say it was a mistake mainly because I think I would have enjoyed De Palma’s film, Passion, more if the many elements directly adapted from the earlier Alain Corneau film, Love Crime, had been entirely new to me. I also feel that those elements were better handled in the original film, a taut, suspenseful, supremely clever thriller upon which De Palma apparently felt he could improve by adding a lot of his classically lurid, dreamlike De Palma flourishes, as most recently seen in the far superior Femme Fatale (2002) and the definitely inferior The Black Dahlia (2006). Read More

Feminism and its viewpoints on the portrayal of woman in the history of film focus primarily on patriarchy and how it functions to reinforce the status of women in any given society. This status is one of submissiveness to men and undying conformity to the good of the male-dominated social system. Since film could simply be said to be a visual medium that is chiefly influenced by the culture from which it spawns, then the societal practices within said culture are transferred to film, and thus influence and reinforce the individuals who see them. In the case of film noir, the presence of patriarchal influence is more than evident, and in Sogo Ishii’s 1994 film noir, Angel Dust, we see what happens to those who conform and those who do not in a patriarchal society.

Film noir is a French term literally meaning “black film.” The name, coined by French film critic Nino Frank in 1946, captures the essence of this style of Hollywood filmmaking. “In fashioning film noir,” Frank says, “Hollywood borrowed heavily from the expressionist film techniques and lighting used by German directors in the 1920s.”

However, despite the low-key lighting and dark, shadowy, contrasting images reminiscent of German Expressionist films, Frank also saw the influence of French Poetic Realist films. “In the ’30s poetic realism,” he states, “with its moody sense of suspended lives on the verge of doom, perfectly expressed a nation’s fatalism and despair.” Thus, with the two styles combined the famous term was born. Read More